


The price of love

by candycorns



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Patton gets nostalgic for what once was
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:15:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28159635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/candycorns/pseuds/candycorns
Summary: "Patton spends a lot of time thinking about the past. The others think he shouldn’t, that it isn’t healthy. They had a whole episode about it and everything. But – Patton believes in the privacy of his own heart – someone needs to stand vigil for ghosts."Or: Patton loves his friend. His friend is dead.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6
Collections: TSS Fanworks Collective





	The price of love

**Author's Note:**

> Opening line inspiration comes from Richard Feynman's letter to his deceased wife, "I love my wife. My wife is dead." It's beautiful and heartbreaking, and a short read.

Patton loves his friend. His friend is dead.

All the others have moved on. Patton would like to, as well. At least, he thinks he’d like to. But at the same time, it’s probably true that he _could_ move on if he simply chose to put some effort into it, which he has never done. It feels like a betrayal, somehow. Even though that’s silly.

He spends a lot of time thinking about the past. The others think he shouldn’t, that it isn’t healthy. They had a whole episode about it and everything. But – Patton believes in the privacy of his own heart – someone needs to stand vigil for ghosts.

Seeing photos of their ex is a kind of haunting, Patton thinks. Whether buried deep in their camera roll, where Janus keeps Logan from noticing they kept a few; or on Instagram, where Janus keeps Logan from noticing they still follow him. Either way it’s the same: traces of someone long gone, permanently out of reach.

That relationship is dead, like Patton’s friend. Still, both linger.

Patton is reminded of his dead friend often. Usually it’s Thomas, but sometimes it’s the others. They’ll laugh with just the right giggle, smile with just the right innocent twinkle, and suddenly Patton can’t breathe.

That’s when he lies. He hates lying, but he hates making the others worry even more. There’s nothing they can do to help. Nothing anyone can do. Thomas, especially, can never know about Patton’s grief. The guilt would eat him alive, even though it’s not his fault. He couldn’t help but grow up, after all, along with all the change that entails. The sun rises; children get older. And sometimes, usually, they die.

Patton has never quite figured out this “grief” thing. He thinks it should get easier over time, but it’s actually the opposite. The more time passes, the more things get left behind. Family vacations, favorite teachers, childhood pets, best friends. Each precious thing lets Patton carry it for a while, but no matter how closely he cradles it to his heart, they all fall from his hands sooner or later. Lost loves litter the ground all the way back to Thomas’s earliest memories. But Patton can only walk forward, no matter how badly he wants to go back for them. Even to just sit with the dropped thing for a little while, for a moment of stillness amidst the eternal trudge onwards. His feet have been aching for years.

Losing a child is a special sort of pain. Of course, he wasn’t Patton’s child, not technically, no matter how much Patton may pretend otherwise. But he was young, and Patton loved him. Still loves him.

He was funny in that little kid sort of way, where everything they do is too adorably naïve not to bring a smile to your face. And he was a performer even back then, always begging his brothers to help put on a play for their parents or modelling new clothes with a strut around the house. He liked Legos and coloring and raw cookie dough. His favorite color was red, favorite animal was puppies, favorite movie was Aladdin. He was Patton’s whole world.

And Thomas still is, of course! The older version of him, that is. The one that’s alive, for now, until he too slips through Patton’s desperate fingers and never gets up again. Patton doesn’t want to think about that, can’t bear to. The last thing he wants is to give the impression that he doesn’t love 31-year-old Thomas just as much as 8-year-old Thomas, or 13-year-old Thomas, or 20-year-old Thomas. _Of course_ he does. It’s just that 31-year-old Thomas is sitting on the couch watching Parks and Rec right now, while 8-year-old Thomas is dead.

The others would think it’s silly. After all, what’s the difference between kid Thomas and adult Thomas? They have the same memories, the same family, the same slightly-differently-proportioned bodies. 31-year-old Thomas’s favorite color is red, favorite animal is puppies, favorite movie is Aladdin. He likes Legos and – well, not really coloring anymore – but still eats raw cookie dough (much to Patton’s delight). He’s still _himself. ___

__Except Patton remembers that little boy with the toothy grin and bowl-cut hair and knows with total, terrible certainty that he is gone. Patton remembers so much about him: how he doodled superheroes in his notebooks, and always held his mother’s hand in the supermarket, and made every kid in his class a special Valentine’s Day card. Those notebooks gather dust in the attic, now. The boy who loved them is dead._ _

__The others think Patton shouldn’t hold onto so much from the past. Logan thinks he keeps it all because he views the past as better than it was. Better than the present. But that’s not true. Patton keeps the photos, the old toys, the memories for one very specific reason: they’re the only thing left of his dear, dead friend._ _

__Patton loves his friend. His friend is dead._ _

__And soon enough the Thomas sitting on the couch will be, too._ _

**Author's Note:**

> This was a melancholy one. A friend of mine told me how she missed her childhood friend, and how it hurt to realize that little girl no longer existed. I thought Patton would understand that feeling.
> 
> If you liked it, kudos and comments are welcome!
> 
> Come find me on tumblr @tothestanders and we can wallow in the inevitability of change together.


End file.
